Queen Bey is back.
According to a new ad for a Renaissance CD and merchandise on her website, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has revealed a new album, dubbed Renaissance, releasing on July 29. The upcoming Beyoncé release was also publicized on social media by a number of streaming platforms, including TIDAL and Spotify. The new album has not been given any additional information.
The initial 2022 release rumors surfaced online on June 9 after Beyoncé deleted her profile images from all of her social media accounts. Her incredibly well-organized Beyhive believed the avatars hinted towards upcoming music.
Beyoncé has remained one of music’s most influential, demanding performers throughout her lengthy career, redefining pop fame in the process. Beyoncé hasn’t been idle since releasing Lemonade in 2016, her second visual album that also debuted as an HBO film of the same name. She has also been active in the fashion and film industries and has contributed to the work of other artists, including a 2020 feature on rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s remix of “Savage.”
According to the standards of the business, she “appears to be the hardest-working entertainer alive,” according to critic Kiana Fitzgerald’s assessment of Beyoncé for NPR Music. The term “pop star” is no longer appropriate because Bey has created a totally new fame matrix.
Beyoncé received her first Oscar nomination for the song “Be Alive” from the movie King Richard, which she performed in a lavish, neon-clad performance in March to kick off the 2022 Academy Awards. She was the curator and producer of the music CD for the 2019 animated version of The Lion King, titled The Lion King: The Gift. The song “Black Parade” from the soundtrack garnered her her 28th Grammy Award in 2021 for best R&B performance. The victory allowed Beyoncé to tie Quincy Jones for the most Grammy awards ever given to a performer and allowed her to break the record for the most Grammy awards received by a female artist.
Beyoncé was the first Black woman to perform as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s headlining act in 2018. The performances, afterwards dubbed “Beychella,” included reworked, recently arranged versions of her biggest, most cherished songs and a set that drew inspiration from the marching band tradition of HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities.) The next year, the Coachella stage was highlighted in a Netflix behind-the-scenes performance documentary as well as on HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM. “She’s created a whole world to embrace the music that she’s put out over the last two decades of her career,” Sidney Madden of NPR Music remarked of the performance.